Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Dimitri Soudas Brings The Lame

Dimitri Soudas: As I stated earlier we're having great turnouts at our crowds (sic) so far. Every single campaign stop, we've had tremendous turnout so far.

Reporter: Doesn't answer the question. Focus on the question please. Why are these people being kicked out of the rallies?

Dimitri Soudas: For example the issue of the young lady. I can't speak to all the specifics. But the young student in London yesterday on behalf of the campaign we apologized for the inconvenience. At the same time, next time we're in London the prime minister would love to meet with the young student, take a picture with her and hopefully she can post it on her Facebook site as well. Having said that, the bottom line here is the conservative campaign is having tremendous turnout across the country. If the other parties are having a hard time turning out people that's their issue.

Reporter: Are you doing a blanket apology to all those kicked out?

Dimitri Soudas: Campaigns always have these kinds of things....

Reporter: Do you have staff who are combing through people's Facebook sites to look for suspicious connections? Are you going into people's Facebook sites?

Dimitri Soudas: Bottom line here is that for every campaign event like I said earlier, we have a tremendous turnout and we always have to make sure that we're planning to have rooms big enough to ensure all the people turning up are able to attend and participate in the rally.

Reporter: But what is your screening mechanism?

Dimitri Soudas: Local campaigns make sure everybody in the region and everybody who are from the surrounding ridings attend our events.

Reporter: The question was what is your screening mechanism? You answer some other question that wasn't asked. How exactly is it that your staff are combing through people's Facebook pages looking for signs of disloyalty?

I'm not aware of such combing. I'm not aware of such things.

Reporter: But it happened. This woman in London says that she was told as she was removed from the rally the person removing her told her they had seen her Facebook site and seen a picture of Michael Ignatieff there.

Dimitri Soudas: Yes and as I stated, for this young student, I said we apologized.

Reporter: What are you apologizing for?

Dimitri Soudas: For the inconvenience it caused her.

Reporter: So you acknowledge your campaign did this?

Dimitri Soudas: No -- it obviously caused this young student an inconvenience. We have apologized for that.

Reporter: What about the other cases?

Dimitri Soudas: It's obviously evident that our campaign is attracting tremendous response and quite frankly the biggest crowds than any other election campaign.....

There are repeat accusations the student is a rabble rouser (looks like the official unofficial talking point -- I have to wonder how damaged the poor Con dears were by Sheenagh McMahon asking embarrassing questions, although that was at a press conference)

There are also repeat accusations the ejection was a 'setup' by the Libs. Which requires the Libs toa/know the Cons were spying on all registered attendees -- (which on a sidenote...has anyone pointed out that such monitoring means the Cons/government have profiled each and every attending person to each and every rally, no matter whether that person was found wanting or not? Doesn't that bother anyone who 'passed' security? How many hundreds of persons are in this sweep? And what databases/access portals were used to get the information?)b/ the Libs would know the Con vetters would pick on this one, young, woman 'suicide thronger' in specific.c/ they knew the Cons would pre-emptively throw out someone who hadn't done anything disruptive.

If the Libs are this psychic and able to manipulate the Cons at every turn, they should form the government.